Tuesday, 23 April 2013

In conclusion, after analyzing from the results, we saw a trend. Most people were not well informed of GMO, as most of them did not know about GMO when we asked them questions "Do you know what GMO is?" and "Do you know that GMO is commonly found in Supermarkets?". We also came to a conclusion that their attitudes and opinions towards GMO changed negatively when they realized what GMO was when we told them so as they rated GMO 4.15/10. The factor that affects GMO's reputation is probably its ability or chance to give us cancer, or tumors, as we told them. We also told the interviewees that GMO was not yet fully tested, this was another fact that made them have a negative attitude towards GMO. However, we also told them that GMO has its advantages. Like, rice we eat today are mass produced are due to the fact that we use GMO rice. We have modified the traits of the food. Hence these are our conclusions:

People were not so informed and aware on the topic of GMO.

They feared GMO, because of the fact that it might harm us, give us cancer and tumor growth as shown in lab testing.

Possible Improvements:

The above conclusion is the conclusion of our research and survey. This, will be the conclusion of our whole project.

The whole project was quite smoothly done. We started from last year, where we did the Research Justification, Proposal and Multimedia Presentation. And came this year, where we did the research survey and interviews. This year was not as smooth as we thought. We did not kind of follow our Gantt Chart and were late for everything we did. Instead of crafting the survey questions early in Term 1, we just crafted them at the end of Term 1 and did the survey, interview during the March Holidays. This led to the lack of time due the clash with other projects which were ongoing that time. Our survey questions were also not that good which gave us a lot of problems during the survey period. For example, we were rejected a lot of times by the people we tried to interview as they did not know much about the topic. Worse, the old people did not know the chim words we were using and could not conduct the survey as efficiently. Eventually, due to the lack of time, we could only interview 60 people instead of the 120 that we planned. So in summary, we should not procrastinate as much in other projects and start earlier so we would not face the same problem again.

Data Collection
So, what we did the for the data collection was to conduct physical surveys outside supermarkets (NTUC, Cold Storage, Shop"n"Save, etc) as it was only legal to do so, in different areas of Singapore( North, South, East and West). We did this so as to reach out to the people who came to shop the groceries as they were the ones who were the most interested and "up-to-date" on these type of produce issues. Initially, we wanted to group the survey results as to their respective locations they were held, however, later on, we called for a change of plans to group the survey results as a whole as this grouping of survey results to their locations were quite unnecessary and was very tedious work. The results of the interview are as follows.Basic Statistics
We interviewed a total of 60 people, with 30 of which were males and the other 30 being females. We then further grouped them into their age groups, which are as follows, "Young", "Middle Age", and the "Old" category. The "Young" category includes any youths from the age of 18 to 26. The "Middle Age" category consisting people from the age of 27 to 49. And lastly, the "Old" category comprising of the older generation above the age of 50.

Initial awareness on GMO
The following picture below shows the percentage of people who knew what the term GMO stood for and a brief understanding of what it is. Overall, 77% of the interviewees were not aware of the term GMO, with 65% of the males and 90% of the females not having even a brief understanding of GMO.

Interest in GMO
The following picture shows the percentage of people who wanted to know more about GMO. Overall, 72% yes when asked whether they wanted to know more, with 67% of the males and 77% of the females agreeing to listen to some brief information brought to them by us, the interviewers.

Awareness of GMO products on supermarket shelves
The following picture shows the percentage of people who knew that GMO products were sold commonly in supermarkets. Overall, 82% were not aware that GMO products were common in the marketplace, with 80% of the males and 84% of the females being new to this fact of GMO products being sold in supermarkets.

Willingness to eat GMO( if given the option)
The following picture shows the percentage of people how frequent they would consume GMO products if they were to be given a choice. Overall, 59% replied that they would never eat GMO, 13% replied they would have it daily and the remaining 28% giving other choices. For the males, 57% would never consume GMO produce, 13% consuming it daily and remaining 30% giving other options. For the females, 60% would never consume GMO produce, 13% consuming it daily and remaining 27% giving other options.

Rating of GMO
The following picture shows the ratings of GMO produce the interviewees gave based on its reliability and health related issues. Overall, the interviewees gave an average rating of 4.15 out of 10. For the males, they gave an average rating of 4 out of 10 and for the females, they gave an average rating of 4.3 out of 10.

Tuesday, 9 April 2013

This research was carried out as our IRS Project we embarked on from
Secondary 1 2012. We would like to extend our sincere gratitude to the
following people for their contribution with this project, without which this project would not have been carried out.We would like to extend our sincere gratitude to our mentors, Mr Ng Guo Hui(2012) and Mr Tan Wei(2013), for their expert mentoring. They certainly are great teachers and it undeniably has been a very meaningful journey with them. Our research might not even be made possible if not for their honest and wise suggestions.In addition, we would like to also thank the interviewees who took part in our surveys. They were able to spare us some of their time even with their busy schedule and share how their true opinions towards GMO products, ultimately being a part of the people's voice.Lastly, we would like to thank the contributors of external sources who provided us indirectly with useful information which allowed us to work on our work with a trusty source to depend on.

Do Singaporeans know what GMO is and if so, what is their opinions/ attitudes towards it?

S2-05 Group A (Alpha)

School of Science and Technology, Singapore

Abstract:

Singapore, a country with no natural resources, food products from other countries. When we are shipping over these products, are they really just food ?

Genetically Modified Organisms(GMOs) are organisms with genes of other organisms added into them. This adding of genes improves and add traits to an organism which will definitely allow them to do some things they weren't able to do in their natural state. And this ultimately benefits us when these organisms end up as food in our plates. However, nothing is free in the world and everything has their own flaws. GMO products might have side effects such as cancer and shorter life span. According to World Watch Institute, it have shown that 9 percent of crops are GMO and this means that 9 percent of what goes into our mouths are GMO, so we wanted to ask this question to Singaporeans, For or against GMO?

Monday, 11 March 2013

Hi sir/madam, we are from the School of Science and Technology, and we are doing this survey as part of our school research project. Can you spare us 3 minutes of your time?

Sir, do you know what the term GMO stands for?

*If yes, continue to further survey questions. --> (2)

*If no, would you like to know more to answer our questions?

**If yes, say:

Erm. GMO stands for Genetically Modified Organisms. Simply, it is a a product of combining genes from different organisms to improve or add traits into an organism. For example, a rice gene is combined with a fish gene to give rice proteins and make the rice plant immune to rain, floods. GMO is very common in the present day. However, this common technology has its advantages and disadvantages. Some people have suffered big illness from GMO and studies have shown GMO can cause tumor growth (cancer). --> (1)

1) First of all, now that you know GMO and its advantages and disadvantages, I would like to know how often you would feed you or your children. Daily? Every once a week? Twice a a week? Or never?

2) Are you aware that GMO is very common in supermarkets like __________?

3) Would you like the GMO Products to be labelled?

4) If you were to describe GMO in 1 word, what would it be? Reliable? Unhealthy? Risky?

5) If you were to rate how reliable GMO is in overall, health, efficiency, all those on a scale of 1-10. What would it be?

Thank you for your time. If possible, please leave your contact number or email here, so that we are able to contact you anytime if we have any queries.